Every day, I monitor my food intake and regulate it. Also, I weigh myself every week. Together, those two operations put me in control of my body’s weight. Part of monitoring my food intake is writing down everything I eat. Regulation is a bit trickier. I don’t have the willpower to force myself to eat less. But I am willing to be bribed into eating less food. The bribery takes many forms, including making sure that the food I eat is strongly appealing to me.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – Jimmy Dean sausage egg croissantwich (410)
- 410 calories
Lunch – 4 ounces cooked noodles (200); half Italian sub sandwich (300); cookies (100)
- 600 calories
Dinner – roast pork loin with apples (200); baguette (250); corn on the cob (150)
- 600 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (80); chocolate (110)
- 190 calories
Total for the day: 1800 calories (limit 1800)
Clothes
I was recently reminded that as I lose weight, my clothes won’t fit any more. Any pants I buy will only fit briefly (a couple of months) at my current weight loss pace. I hadn’t thought about other clothes, but eventually all my Oxford shirts (button down collar types) will be too loose to wear, especially around the neck, but the body too. That will all have to be turned over. And what makes it worse is that I don’t know what my real final weight will be yet. 205? 200? 195? The BMI scale suggests 144-195 pounds, but that is a big range. What will my final size be? What will I wear?
In a way I don’t like to deal with this issue until I have to, it feels like “jinxing” my progress, counting chickens before they are hatched, etc. But I have gone ahead and bought a series of pants, waist sizes 46, 44, and 42. They are all too small for me, but the size 50 pants I am using now are too big, and the size 48 pants I own fit perfectly now. By the end of this month, I wouldn’t be surprised to see size 46 fitting. At that point, my shirts will probably start looking too big, too. My winter coat? Too big. I own one suit. It will fit briefly during the summer (coat is 52 long, size 46 pants) and then be too big.
So the charity shops will do well out of me for the rest of this year. Then I will have to construct a new wardrobe. It’s an opportunity, but I hope I can settle on a permanent weight relatively quickly. Making that transition will also be difficult. I won’t be losing weight (on purpose), I will be trying to maintain a weight. But for now, I will just try to be happy about the way my food lifestyle is working out. Really, when the lifestyle is working well, I am very happy to be in calorie deficit. It feels like a worthwhile cause, and brings the different parts of my mind and body together.
-The Doctor